Technology companies are focusing their research and development spending
by limiting the number of projects they work on. A Financial Times
analysis shows that all but a few of the biggest U.S. technology companies
are limiting their research efforts. John Kelly, IBM's new head of
research, has refocused IBM's efforts on the tech markets with the greatest
long-term potential, including cloud computing, pooled computing, new
systems to boost corporate compliance, and data security. IBM says that
Kelly's new focus will not lead to significant cutbacks in other research
efforts, but the company has already redirected its R&D budget to cut
spending in areas that are not expected to yield big returns or competitive
advantages. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard recently revealed a new focus at HP
Labs that will consolidate funding for 150 smaller projects and focus on 20
to 30 big projects in an attempt to sharpen its research efforts. Some
research executives say the slow growth in R&D spending is exaggerated by
the shift in emphasis toward more profitable services. However, analysts
say that even in difficult times there are many incentives for tech
companies to maintain their R&D spending. Sanford C Bernstein researchers
found that companies that increase R&D as a percentage of their sales over
a five-year period tend to be rewarded with higher profit margins and share
prices in later years. Bernstein analyst Richard Keiser says the message
is that management is a better judge of R&D spending than the market.Click Here to View Full Article
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Intel and Microsoft tomorrow will announce plans to spend $10 million over
five years for university research programs designed to find new techniques
for programming multicore computers. Sources say the companies have chosen
the University of California, Berkeley and another unnamed university.
Computer makers are increasingly incorporating multicore processors in new
machines, but developing programs that can effectively utilize the
technology is a complex challenge. "Everybody is madly racing toward
multicore technology, and they don't have a clue about how to program it,"
says Stanford University professor William Dally. Dally says his school
was one of about two dozen educational institutions that submitted
proposals to Microsoft and Intel to win funding to study the problem. He
says Berkeley's proposal won. UC Berkeley professor David Patterson
declined comment, but he and fellow Berkeley researchers have been working
on the problem since at least 2005. They have been focusing on identifying
the applications that stand to benefit the most from parallel processing.
Advanced Micro Devices chief technology officer Phil Hester says media-rich
applications are particularly well suited to multicore chips, while others
say analyzing financial transactions with multicore technology could offer
huge payoffs.Click Here to View Full Article
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Enrollment at U.S. engineering schools remains stable, but the overall
number of engineering degrees is declining, concludes an Engineering Trends
report. The report says that although U.S. universities are awarding more
engineering PhDs than in the past, small but steady declines in bachelor's
degree programs have occurred over the past three academic years, which
means the pattern of slowly declining degree numbers should continue for
another three or four years. For example, the number of computer and
electrical engineering bachelor's degrees reached 14,584 in 2004-05, but
dropped to 14,209 in 2005-06 and 13,783 in 2006-07. Master's degrees also
dropped between 2006 and 2007, though master's programs reported a 2
percent rise in fall 2006 enrollment, meaning graduation rates could rise
in 2008 and 2009. Engineering Trends founder Richard Heckel says the
recent rise in doctorates was the result of increases in enrollment several
years ago, and a reduced rate of doctoral degrees should begin next year
and continue for at least three years. Albert Helfrick, chair of
electrical and systems engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,
says the population of experienced engineers is aging, and if large numbers
of engineers retire, the U.S. faces a severe engineering shortfall.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Two bills were recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives
designed to boost the number of H-1B visas available. The first bill,
sponsored by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), would increase the cap to
130,000 starting in 2008, and would increase it to as much as 180,000 if
the limit is reached in the preceding year. The bill would also exempt
from the cap anyone who has received a master's or doctorate degree from a
U.S. university in technology fields such as math, science, and
engineering. The second bill, sponsored by Lamar Smith (R-Texas), would
raise the visa cap to 195,000 in 2008 and 2009, the highest level for H-1B
visas since its peak between 2001 and 2003. Both bills are more aggressive
than previous attempts to increase the H-1B visa cap. Critics say the H-1B
visa program lowers wages and displaces qualified American workers. They
also allege that offshore firms, particularly Indian ones, have been
acquiring H-1B visas, recruiting foreign workers, and outsourcing them to
foreign companies. Other bills in the House and Senate would place new
obligations on U.S. employers before hiring H-1B workers, including
requiring companies to recruit Americans first.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency director Tony Tether says the
goal of DARPA's networking programs is to tie together tactical and
strategic users through networks that are capable of automatic and
autonomous configuration, maintenance, and protection. The objective of
the neXt Generation Communications program is to increase available
spectrum tenfold by exploiting spectrum that is assigned yet idle at any
particular moment through technology that enables real-time sensing and
dynamic allocation. To link different tactical ground, airborne, and
satellite communications terminals, DARPA's Network Centric Radio System
program devised a mobile, self-repairing ad hoc network gateway strategy
that delivers complete radio/network compatibility on-the-move in any
terrain. The Optical and Radio Frequency Combined Link Experiment showed
that Global Information Grid information can be relayed to operation assets
at the edge by combining high-speed free-space optical communications with
high-reliability radio communications. DARPA intends to design, build, and
demonstrate a prototype tactical network that connects ground-based and
airborne elements in order to develop a high data rate backbone network
through several airborne assets that usually fly at very high altitudes and
are distanced from each other by several hundred kilometers. The focus of
DARPA's Dynamic Quarantine of Computer-Based Worm Attacks program is the
creation of dynamic quarantine defenses for U.S. military networks against
large-scale malicious code attacks via development of an integrated system
that automatically detects and responds to worm-based attacks against
military networks, delivers advanced warning to other DoD enterprise
networks, examines and ascertains the malware's propagation and
epidemiology, and automatically inoculates the network against these
threats.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

The next-generation interface was a hot topic of discussion among experts
during panels at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The popularity of Guitar Hero
suggests that the video game's controller could influence new ways to make
computers accessible, says RedOctane CEO Kai Huang, creator of the game
that relies on a guitar style interface. The Microsoft Surface interface,
which makes use of other spaces, is also gaining some momentum in the
consumer world, and Microsoft's Kristin Alexander says interfaces will not
be limited to table top screens in the longer term. Meanwhile, Rick
Barraza of Cynergy Systems showed off a homemade "Minority Report-style"
gesture interface made from a Nintendo Wii controller, a gutted computer
mouse, and a pair of baseball gloves dotted with infra-red LEDs. However,
design professor Nathan Shedroff says gesture-style interfaces are
physically demanding, which could limit their appeal. Interfaces that
allow people to control computers with their brains could have more
potential. "In 20 to 40 years that technology is going to advance," Huang
says.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

University of Sheffield robotics and artificial intelligence professor
Noel Sharkey says that as robotic technology advances, humans will have to
answer some difficult questions. Currently, service robots in industry are
the most common type of robot, but there are about 3.5 million personal
robots in use, and the industry continues to grow. Most interestingly,
Sharkey says, is the growth in the use of surgical robots, particularly for
use in bypass surgery and the removal of prostate cancer. Robotic surgery
can be done by cutting four tiny holes and inserting robots through these
openings, which allow patients to recover much faster than with normal
surgery. Robotic surgery also makes it possible for the surgeon and the
patient to be in different places. Military robots are also showing
significant growth. The U.S. plans to spend $4 billion on unmanned systems
through 2010, with increases in spending to $24 billion by 2015. Robots
will become increasingly human in terms of touch and feel. Researchers are
also experimenting with combining animals and robots, using technology to
manipulate the instruction set within animals. For example, American
researchers have succeeded in putting a chip inside the spinal column of a
centipede to remotely control its feet movement. Sharkey says robots will
become as pervasive as computers, but the robots will be more like gadgets
than humanoid robots.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

A number of electronics products made in Chinese factories have been found
to contain viruses that steal passwords, distribute spam, and open up
computers to hackers. For instance, digital picture frames sold at Sam's
Club contained a previously unknown virus that steals gaming passwords and
disables antivirus software, according to security researchers at Computer
Associates. Viruses have also been found on digital picture frames sold by
Best Buy and Target, as well as on Apple iPods and TomTom navigation
equipment. Security experts say the viruses are being loaded during the
final stage of production, in which the devices are plugged into a computer
and tested to ensure that they work properly. Experts note that the
viruses are probably coming from a careless factory employee plugging an
infected device into the testing computer, rather than hackers or the
factories themselves. Nonetheless, hackers could someday use infected
Chinese-made devices as an avenue of attack, security experts say. "We'll
probably see a steady increase over time," says Symantec computer
researcher Zulfikar Ramzan. "The hackers are still in a bit of a testing
period--they're trying to figure out if it's really worth it."Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

University of York researchers are developing an artificial immune system
for the Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms (Symbrion) project, which is
studying how swarms of miniature robots can form a single artificial
organism. Dr. Jon Timmis and professor Andy Tyrrell of the Intelligent
Systems Group in the Department of Electronics are heading York's effort to
create an artificial immune system that is similar to the human body's
natural immune system. Symbrion would be capable of detecting faults in
both individual robots and the larger collective organism, and recommending
a corrective action to the high-level control system. Each robot would be
capable of sharing key information with others in the single organism,
which also would be capable of evolving as it responds to a new problem.
Timmis says multi-robot organisms have the potential to perform real-world
tasks in situations where human intervention would be limited. "For
instance, a Symbrion swarm could be released into a collapsed building
following an earthquake, and form themselves into teams to lift rubble or
search for survivors," he says. "This kind of thing is clearly a long way
from being realized, but work in this project will allow us to start
building the robots of the future."Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Microsoft Research's Meredith Morris is developing SearchTogether, a
search tool designed for collaborative use. Most search "tools are
designed for a single person, working alone by him or herself, but that's
not the way that we work," Morris says. SearchTogether is intended to help
groups with members who are working on different computers, whether they
are all logged in simultaneously or at different times. The tool is a
plug-in for Internet Explorer 7 and requires a Windows Live ID. Using
SearchTogether, one person can initiate a Web search and invite others to
join. The tool tracks the work done by the group, making it easier to
assign tasks and keep track of what has been accomplished. Before
designing the tool, Morris conducted a survey to determine the most common
problems groups have when doing online research. Among the problems
identified were redundant efforts and inefficient communication about
results. If users are searching simultaneously, they can use
SearchTogether's "peek and follow" feature to view the pages others are
looking at and to instant message each other as they view the search
results. Morris says she is interested in adding more sophisticated
sorting capabilities. For example, if a doctor and a patient are searching
together for information, more technical results might be sent to the
doctor while the patient receives simpler results.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Roboticists from Georgia Tech and Emory universities recently unveiled the
EI-E, a robot that is capable of grabbing objects that a user targets with
a laser. The robot has two lenses spaced together like eyes and a
5.5-foot-tall body. "The entire world becomes a point-and-click interface.
Objects become buttons. And if you point at one, the robot comes to grab
it," says Charlie Kemp, director of Georgia Tech's Center for Healthcare
Robotics. To operate EI-E, a user points a laser at something for a few
seconds. The robot responds with a beep, focuses on the target, travels to
the object and grabs it with a mechanical arm. The robot starts the return
trip when the laser is pointed at the user's feet. After returning, the
robot looks for a human face before handing over the object. Kemp says
engineers are often focusing too much on making robots behave like people
and are overlooking other forms of interaction. "How can you make robots
that are actually useful? That was bugging me," Kemp says. The researchers
say the robot successfully fetches the desired object 90 percent of the
time. EI-E works by using dozens of sensors, lasers, and cameras to help
it find its target and determine the grip needed to retrieve it. The
researchers hope the robot will eventually be able to open doors, switch
light panels, and guide patients.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Breakthroughs in computerized facial expression and voice recognition
technology could lead to human-computer interfaces that require almost no
physical movement whatsoever. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has predicted
that such advancements will be made within 10 years and launch what he
calls "the second digital decade." University of Toronto professor Parham
Aarabi says the traditional interaction between humans and computers is
unnatural, and that natural interactions will be more visual and acoustic.
Austin Shoemaker, a former Apple Computer software engineer and current
chief technology officer at Coolris, says people should view computer
interfaces as an extension of themselves or an extension of their mind.
Like the voice command technology currently being used in cars, much of the
computerized communication technology is being developed in bits and
pieces. After disabled physics professor Stephen Hawking became too weak
to move his hands to control the computer that enabled him to speak, he
started using a device that allows him to control the computer with eye
movement. The National Research Council in Ottawa patented an invention
called the Nouse, which uses Webcam technology and motion-detection
software to track a user's nose, allowing users to move a cursor around the
screen using subtle nose movements. Blinking an eye replaces the mouse
click. NRC's George Forester says such technology is of enormous value to
multitaskers, and will become increasingly easy to understand.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Tim Berners-Lee says that Google may eventually be replaced as the most
popular brand on the Internet by a company that harnesses the power of
next-generation Web technology. He says Google's search technology would
pale in comparison to programs that utilize the "Web of the future," which
he says would allow any piece of information to be linked to any other.
Similarly, the current craze over social networking sites such as Facebook
and MySpace will eventually be replaced by networks that connect all types
of things, not just people, through the semantic Web. He says the semantic
Web will allow for direct connections between more low-level pieces of
information, which will lead to new services. "Using the semantic Web, you
can build applications that are much more powerful than anything on the
regular Web," he says. "Imagine if two completely separate things--your
bank statements and your calendar--spoke the same language and could share
information with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a
whole bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money."
The challenge lies in finding a way to represent all that data so that when
it is connected to the Web links to relevant information can be recognized
and established. "In the semantic Web, it's like every piece of data is
given a longitude and latitude on a map, and anyone can 'mash' them
together and use them for different things," Berners-Lee says.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

Researchers at Israel's University of Haifa have developed a system that
enables hospitals to use virtual reality and computer technology to
rehabilitate stroke patients. The program is capable of accurately
diagnosing 90 percent to 98 percent of the time whether a patient is
healthy, or has suffered a traumatic brain injury or a stroke. The
researchers have also developed the technology to determine which treatment
options would be best for the patient and how much the individual will be
able to rehabilitate. The program uses virtual reality to simulate a
patient's response to therapy, which has the potential to keep hospitals
from pursuing treatments that would be of no benefit to the patient or even
harm the individual. Haifa computer scientist Dr. Larry Manevitz says the
group will now focus on finding connections in the behavior of people in
sub-groups of brain injuries. "The human eye may not be able to see such
similarities, but a computer would easily be able to pick them up,"
Manevitz says.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

When Apple released the iMac in 1998, many said the absence of a floppy
drive would doom the machine, but the iMac became the best-selling computer
of all time and heralded the downfall of the floppy disk. Now, Apple's
MacBook Air could do the same for the compact disc. Leander Kahney, author
of the upcoming book, "Inside Steve's Brain," says that the MacBook Air
signals the death of not only the internal optical drive but the hard disk
as well. Engadget editor Ryan Block says that new computers are
increasingly featuring storage devices similar to the storage cards used by
digital cameras, and that the lines between external and internal storage
technology are blurring. "There may never be a full transition to SSDs as
replacements for hard drives," Block says. "Bigger is always better, and
hard drives will always be bigger than SSDs." He says that local storage
will always be an option, even though some analysts say that in 10 years
computers will essentially be stripped-down Web-based machines with
everything stored online. Meanwhile, although some experts believe that
all content will shift to digital distribution, others say that people will
still want to be able to purchase products on a disk.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

The MAIA project has developed a non-intrusive brain-computer interface
(BCI) that could give more independence to people whose mobility is limited
by spinal injuries or neurodegenerative conditions by allowing them to
manipulate objects and perform tasks through an electrode-studded headpiece
that picks up brain signals. Unlike other BCIs, the MAIA system's
operation is supplemented by artificial intelligence. The MAIA trials had
users guide a wheelchair around obstacles, but the wheelchair itself
boasted AI protocols to spare users from the responsibility of avoiding
collisions and allow them to focus exclusively on direction. MAIA
coordinator Jose del R. Millan says the purpose of the experiment was to
determine how often the wheelchair's movements were controlled by the
user's thoughts and how often they were directed by the AI component.
During testing, the wheelchair took control 10 percent to 40 percent of the
time depending on the user and the environment. The chair can recognize
from the user's brain waves if it has made an error and send feedback to
users about direction via tactile devices. "We have demonstrated that it
is possible for someone to control a complex mechanical device with their
mind, and this opens up all sorts of possibilities," Millan says.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top

The J. Paul Getty Trust aimed to address a lack of cataloging tools in the
art community with the provision of its Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).
"It was to provide a standardized tool, to provide a central point so
everyone creating these terms can contribute them to one vocabulary, and we
in turn could make them available to the entire community," says Murtha
Baca, who directs the Getty Research Institute's Getty Vocabularies
program. The trust's information technology services unit has developed a
thesaurus construction and publication system that currently supports the
Getty's Global Art Resources, a Web-based resource that includes the three
volumes that make up the AAT. In addition to the AAT, the Getty created
the Thesaurus of Geographic Names and the Union List of Artist Names, and
project manager Joan Cobb says one of the first challenges was putting all
three resources onto a single system prior to their release on the
Internet--a task complicated by the lack of suitable commercial
applications. The Getty built the Vocabulary Coordination System (VCS),
which yields a single production system that lets Getty staff gather,
analyze, edit, merge, and circulate terminology produced by Getty
departments and contributors at other institutions. In addition to the
VCS, the Getty's technical staff currently supports the Getty Vocabularies
on the Web, Web-based forms for the automated contribution of single
records, programs to automatically load batches of contributed data in XML
format, and programs to generate annual exports in XML, relational tables,
and the Machine-readable Cataloging format for institutions and commercial
entities that license datasets.Click Here to View Full Articleto the top